Monday, August 04, 2008

What other projects?

Stranded vest for moi

So I have a sock pattern to finish testing and writing up; another person I know who's having a baby; a very large sweater and some socks to make for Christmas gifts; and a ridiculously neglected Schedule...and what have I been doing? Working on my stranded vest.

Seriously. I am completely obsessed with it.

It's gone in rather a different direction from my original (admittedly vague) vision, and the new concept plays perfectly off of the colours I'm using. I know this probably makes me sound like the most conceited person ever, but I'm absolutely in love with the idea and the look I've finally managed to achieve (I say finally because there has been much ripping back and starting over), and am so proud of myself for eliciting it from my brain. I love this vest. Love, love, love.

Which is kind of surprising, considering all the frogging it's endured (and will yet endure, since I decided this evening that the last two inches need to become toast because where I started the neckline shaping is just wrong, wrong, wrong). A number of the problems have been because I didn't like the way the design was working out and needed a do-over, but unfortunately, more than one of the froggings have been because I plain old screwed up.

(A knitting truth: There is no pattern too simple, nor a knitter too experienced, to eliminate the possibility of making a truly dumbass mistake.)

On the upside, prior to one of the froggings, I tried it on, and holy flurking schmidt, it fits PERFECTLY. I'm not sure how I managed to swing that, but it's true.

At this point, I think I really know what I'm doing (at least basically) and for a while there I was pushing forward like crazy on it because watching the motif take shape in knitting form was so exciting and thrilling I could hardly stand it. Now, however, I've finished one repeat of the pattern (it looks deliciously swizz), so I've calmed down about the project a little.

Alas, there are no pictures, because I'm now pretty sure I'll be submitting the concept to a magazine when this prototype is done. I hope it does get accepted somewhere fairly quickly (or as quickly as acceptances tend to happen, anyway) because I can't wait to show it to people! Of course, I'm talking about it here in such a built-up way that when you do finally see what the pattern looks like, you might be disappointed. But hopefully not.

Foot-pampering socks for moi

I had set this aside for a little bit out of frustration. When I got to the point where I could try it on, it seemed a little snug and tough to get on. This was quite frustrating, because I really didn't want to go back to the drawing board for the women's size, I wanted to finish the damn sock so I could take pictures, write up the pattern and send it the heck off! But of course if a pattern doesn't fit the people it's intended for, well, that's a pattern that pretty much sucks, so I absolutely had to fix the problem. The first step was to find out what constituted a "standard woman's foot". Finally around the middle of this week, I did some research to figure out girths, instep heights and whatnot, and determined that the sock I had was a pretty good match to what it was supposed to be. I also tried it on a second time, this time making sure that the vast volume of ends was more out of the way (thus interfering less with the fit) than when I'd first tried it on, and it went on a lot more easily. So I've concluded that it's just fine and I can keep going.

Unfortunately, Carrie K, there will not be any pictures immediately, nor of any of my other recent or in-progress sock projects because of pre-magazine-publication restrictions. But they're forthcoming, I promise!

Anouk for baby Mendez

One of my co-workers is expecting #2! (November.) And on Thursday, I found out that the ultrasound says it's a girl. Their first baby is a boy, so they already have a lot of boy things, and therefore have had to go shopping for some new stuff. So I wanted to make them something girly. Usually I go with gender-neutral stuff, especially for first babies, because many people have more than one kid, and that second kid might well be a different gender from the first kid, and if that's the case, and I've made something gender-specific for the first kid, that gift won't see the light of day the second time around. But in this case, the circumstances are different, so I feel quite free to go as girly as I want.

I first considered my leafy baby poncho pattern. It's quick, fun, sweet, and uses something that's really easy to get: sock yarn. Added plus: it's easy to find machine-washable sock yarn (machine-washable is key for baby knits). Second added plus: it's easy to find sock yarn in nifty colours. However, I don't think I have enough sock yarn in appropriate colours in the stash, and I'd prefer to use stash yarn (I'm running out of stash storage box space). So instead I went with something I've been itching to knit for years: Anouk. This is a frightfully sweet pinafore dress that can double as a tunic top as the baby gets taller, and it will work equally well worn by itself, or over a shirt. Plus, I have a variety of cotton yarns in my stash that are either the right weight, or which can be doubled to produce the right weight. Winnah.

This is what it looked like this morning:

Now, however, it's much bigger - I'd guess I'm about an inch away from starting the neck shaping. It looks adorable.

And speaking of babies, heartfelt congratulations to Megan on the arrival of her new son, Elwood. Yay! He's so cute. Admittedly, I haven't seen him in person yet, just the shots on Stephanie's blog, but those pictures make him look highly nibblable. Gosh, I love babies.